Amazon breaks Christmas records thanks to Alexa

Amazon has managed to break records once again this Christmas: during the holidays, people all over the world ordered more from the e-commerce giant than ever before. Amazon’s own devices performed particularly well, starring voice assistant Alexa.

Best Christmas ever

Compared to last year, consumers purchased “millions” more during the holiday period, Amazon announced right after Christmas. Although the retailer has not yet revealed any actual turnover figures, the season turns out to be their “best yet”.

“We are thrilled that in the U.S. alone, more than one billion items shipped for free this holiday with Prime,” adds Jeff Wilke, CEO Worldwide Consumer. Around the world, “tens of millions of people” signed up for membership service Prime during the holidays – either for a free trial or a paid membership.

Thanks to Prime Now, Amazon can now deliver items at home for free within two hours. The very last of its Christmas deliveries was on Christmas Eve at 11.30 in Berkeley, California, as someone quickly needed some Greek yogurt, a bottle of shampoo, a Christmas card and a LEGO set.

“Alexa, turn on the Christmas tree!”

Over 50% of the items sold through Amazon originated from small and medium-sized companies. Nevertheless, Amazon’s own electronics were in favour as well: millions of Amazon Fire TV screens, Fire Tablets and Kindle products were purchased.

Voice assistant Alexa is also becoming a bigger part of the festivities: the cloud-based voice service was used for shopping three times more than last year, although critical sources are quick to point out that does not say too much as the base of comparison is very low.

We also know that Alexa was asked to turn on the Christmas lights millions of times this year: “Alexa, turn on the Christmas tree” was the number one request during the holidays. She also helped hundreds of thousands of people to mix cocktails. The most requested song Alexa played was Mariah Carey’s “All I want for Christmas is You”.